Associate Professor of English, Converse College

Richmond: Week 6

Week Six got slightly lost in the shuffle because I’ve been traveling, so I’m going to try to be brief here. But I don’t want to lose all momentum in this process of blogging my training.

This week was not quite as hot as week 5, but the humidity was still a factor. It ws also the final week of two SOS* workouts per week. Week Seven steps it up to three. I rearranged the week a little bit to allow me to do my long run on Saturday, which was important because I needed to do speed intervals on Monday instead of Tuesday the following week due to travel. Week seven is a bit funky too, but that’s largely because, as it turns out, marathon training in a foreign country that is 6 hours ahead of my usual time zone is challenging. More on that next week.

The big story this week was Saturday’s long run. It was more challenging than I thought it would be. The challenge came from a couple of factors: 1) I started later than I should have because I got to bed late on Saturday night and slept a bit too long on Sunday. 2) Related, I didn’t eat enough before I left, and I should have had another gel. I was in a hurry to get out the door Saturday AM once I finally got up, so I didn’t eat much at all. I carried a water bottle with Roctane, and I also had a Gu, but I should have had another. I got a little light-headed during the first two miles, and I seriously considered stopping back at the house to refill my water between mile 2-3, but I decided not to stop and instead just relied on the water fountains along the Mary Black Rail Trail to refill my handheld. But I should have had more calories. I ended up hitting the proverbial wall around mile 12 of 15, which made the final 3 miles a slog. You wouldn’t know it to look at my splits, but I was struggling. And I felt basically wiped out for the rest of the day with a low-grade headache that was remarkably persistent.

M: easy 6

T: 10 (2 warm up, 5x 1 mile at MP-10 (8:13), 2 cool down

W: off.

R: 8 easy

F: 5 easy

Sat: 15

Sun: 6 easy

Total for the week: 50

*SOS stands for Something of Substance. Typically this means Tuesdays are interval repeats meant to help runners increase their speed. Thursdays are tempo runs, or workouts run at the goal pace for the marathon so that you can figure out how it feels and get more comfortable running at that pace. Sundays are long runs that start out on the shorter side of things (for a long run) at 10 miles and will gradually increase in length to 18 miles. Some marathon training plans take their runners to 20 miles, but mine peaks at 18, some of these with a few goal paced miles thrown in for good measure. I work with a Hanson’s Marathon Method coach

About Me:

I'm an English professor at Converse College, where I specialize in 20th and 21st Century literature. I also direct our college study-travel programming. I am a contributing writer for the Chronicle of Higher Education blog ProfHacker (my posts are archived here). I love to run. I'm a crime fiction junkie, a rabid Steeler fan, a decent fantasy football manager, and can put together a respectable March Madness bracket. In my spare time, you can find me running, walking my dog, feeding a cat or three, or, just maybe, taking a nap.